Published: September 13, 1981

AMERICA has become intoxicated by Japanese culture. Awed by Japan's ability to produce cars and cameras, stereos and silicon chips both better and cheaper than our own, we pore over articles and books on the mysterious art of Japanese management. And, at the same time, millions of Americans buy ''Shogun,'' a huge novel about the Way of the Samurai in 16th-century Japan, and millions more sit entranced before the television version of James Clavell's epic.

The astonishing success of the Clavell novel inspired publishers to issue this abridged translation of ''Musashi,'' Eiji Yoshikawa's ''epic novel of the Samurai Era.'' The blurb is quite shameless about motive: ''For all those who were introduced to the Samurai tradition by 'Shogun,' this monumental adventure story of a wandering swordsman who rises to greatness enables the reader to truly understand the Japanese heroic tradition.'' Conceivable, but this true understanding requires readers who can survive this 970-page version of Yoshikawa's 26,000-page opus. Yes, 26,000 pages in five volumes. But even at less than a thousand pages, finishing ''Musashi'' is a small act of heroism in itself.

Eiji Yoshikawa, who died in 1962, achieved enormous popular success with his colloquial adaptions of Japanese historical sagas, and ''Musashi'' (published in a Japanese newspaper in serial between 1935-39) was his greatest commercial triumph. It has remained on the Japanese best-seller list ever since its initial publication as a novel in 1971, and has sold an estimated 120 million copies. One can safely assume that Yoshikawa's epic has struck a responsive chord with Japanese readers, to understate slightly.

Why does any book sell 120 million copies? Well, the novel is based on the adventures of an historical figure, the samurai Miyamoto Musashi, who lived from --------------------------------------------------------------------- Sheldon Frank is a novelist and critic. 1584 to 1645, according to the best estimates. It is also densely populated with other historical figures, and most people do have a misguided fondness for their nation's past - the Golden Age Syndrome is an endemic malady. ''Musashi,'' while based on real figures, is a work of historical fiction, presenting an idealized version of the past that allows Japanese readers to feel ennobled by their heritage and enables Occidental readers to see how the Japanese wish to see themselves. It is useful to remember that the Tokugawa Shogunate lasted from 1600 to 1868, and preserved much of its forms and samurai ethos throughout this very long reign; therefore the events depicted in ''Musashi,'' while occurring in the early 17th century, are, in effect, as close in time to the Japanese as the events of the Civil War are to us. ''Shogun'' ended in 1600, with the fictiona l equivalent of the historical Tokugawa Ieyasu setting out for th e decisive battle of Sekigahara, where his victory made him the Sh ogun and established the exceptionally long-lived Tokugawa Shoguna te. ''Musashi'' begins with the wounded young samurai Takezo, later known as Miyamoto Musashi, lying among the thousands and thousa nds of dead at Sekigahara, a provincial warrior on the losin g side with little hope for the future. It ends 12 years later with M usashi recognized as Japan's greatest swordsman, a samurai with a glorious future before him.

The novel traces this transformation from provin- cial ruffian to national hero. After surviving Sekigahara, Musashi is condemned to three years of solitude in a small room and emerges determined to become a great samurai, not only a magnificent swordsman, but also a man of iron will and Zen-like stoicism. His is an odyssey of struggle and discovery, one that takes him all over Japan, learning from a variety of masters and killing a dizzying number of challengers. He is followed in his journey by a persistent collection of friends and enemies, and most persistently by Otsu, whose requited but unconsummated love for Musashi serves as a unifying thread for this episodic odyssey.

Perhaps ''unifying thread'' is too strong a word for the weak filament that ties the episodes together so loosely. ''Musashi'' is so severely episodic and dramatically sluggish that the mind wearies after a few hundred pages or so. And when one realizes that 25,000 pages are missing from this translation, it grows increasingly apparent that more than a few salient details that might have provided greater coherence have been omitted.

What meager coherence ''Musashi'' does have rests largely on an almost ludicrous series of the most remarkable accidents and coincidences. Anytime Musashi wanders off into the middle of nowhere, the reader knows for certain that he will always bump into an old friend or enemy. Tie Musashi to a tree in a desert without a soul for miles around and, without fail, in a few minutes or a few days, a Zenmonk or a dru nken samurai will pop his head out of the sand and either say he llo or attempt murder. After nearly a thousand pages of these monoton ously absurd encounters and misadventures, it becomes more and more difficult to keep track of the multitude of characters or to care ve ry much about the fate of the hero.

The Way of the Samurai has become the Path of the Tedious, and even the most ardent Japanophiles will doze. Maybe the missing 25,000 pages of ''Musashi'' are necessary for a true appreciation of Yoshikawa's achievement, but I wouldn't bet on it.